The Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations (IASCER) on May 7 asked the 14th ACC meeting here to endorse a set of resolutions, including one that urges the resumption of the Anglican Communion’s dialogue with the Oriental Orthodox Churches of the Middle East.
The resolutions and documents, compiled in a book, The Vision Before Us, also asked the ACC to commend to member provinces for adoption, “key sections” which include matters ranging from the administration of baptism and eucharist, to guidelines for ecumenical participation in ordinations to the Four Principles of Anglican Engagement in Ecumenism.
Gregory Cameron, who is bishop of the Welsh diocese of St. Asaph and former IASCER director, likened the book to “a box of chocolates” that offers many delights and surprises.
Has Forrest Gump become a bishop? Why would they propose a resumption of the dialogue with the Oriental Orthodox churches? What has changed since those churches suspended the dialogue in 2003? As the article explains:
“The meeting of the Anglican Oriental Orthodox International Commission scheduled in the fall of 2003 had been deferred at the suggestion of the heads of the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Syrian Orthodox Church, and the Armenian Orthodox Church, following the ordination that year of a gay bishop in the Episcopal Church in the United States and the blessing of same-sex unions in the Vancouver-based diocese of New Westminster in 2002.
The Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations (IASCER) on May 7 asked the 14th ACC meeting here to endorse a set of resolutions, including one that urges the resumption of the Anglican Communion’s dialogue with the Oriental Orthodox Churches of the Middle East.”
The Anglicans need to get their own theological house in order before they suggest a resumption of this dialogue. Aside from the sheer arrogance of this proposal, we risk looking to our Oriental Orthodox brothers and sistes like a box of fruitcakes!
Chris Taylor, that’s exactly how Anglicans look. Imagine the position of the Anglican Bishop of Egypt, where the largest Christian church by far is the Coptic Orthodox. They know him, and they know he doesn’t support the liberals, but still, it places him and others in the Middle East in a very uncomfortable position. (And with reference to the Muslims, the position is far worse.)
Completely agree, Chris. Many in the Communion leadership think everything has gone back to business as usual. It has not. Canterbury might like to shuffle the activities of ECUSA etc. under the rug as “no big deal,” but other churches understand they are a very big deal and appalling affronts to the Faith as it has been revealed to the Church.
Almost all problems would be solved by a clear affirmation of the Communion that ECUSA has placed itself outside the boundaries of Christian moral teaching, definitively and without question – no equivocation and no “listening process” lamely positioned as though that moral teaching might be junked, after all, at some point in the future. For some reason, the Communion won’t do that. I wonder what it i$ about ECU$A that prevent$ the Communion from doing $o?
What do Anglicans bring to the table? Well, Vickie Gene Robinson as a bishop, the ECUSA/TEC as the moneyed-power mad operator of the Anglican Communion, Presiding Bishop Schori as a model of “reconciliation and dialogue” and a non-ecclesiology that cannot articulate its reason for existence.
Now, what might real churches object to here?
The real question is why there is consideration for “ecumenical dialogue” when real dialogue requires two parites able to talk. Anglicanism is demonstrably unable to so do.
Thanks, Rowan, for your clear leadership and demonstration of all the inabilities of the Anglican Communion. You saved us shipwreck on the shoals of “ecumenical relations” by your inaction. The tide has exposed the reef and we will quite steer clear of it.